Powering Security: How Multi-Account Architecture Fueled Nuclear Progress

Executive Summary

A nuclear technology company achieved significantly improved security, operational efficiency, and agility by partnering with SMS to implement a secure multi-account cloud architecture. The transformation established robust security controls, automated infrastructure management, and reduced deployment times, enabling the organization to focus on their core mission of advancing innovative energy solutions.

The Challenge

A rapidly-growing energy infrastructure firm faced significant operational challenges with their existing cloud infrastructure. Their diverse workloads, including critical infrastructure management services, enterprise applications, and complex modeling simulations, were all housed within a single cloud account.

This monolithic structure created several pressing issues:

• Security vulnerabilities due to an overly permissive environment where many users had elevated privileges
• Lack of governance over cloud resources, making auditing and compliance difficult
• Inability to contain the “blast radius” of potential security incidents
• Manual, reactive management processes without proper documentation or review

The company’s environment was characterized internally as a “wild west” that needed to mature into a controlled, secure, and scalable platform to support their mission-critical work in the energy sector. Leadership recognized the need to partner with experts who could facilitate this transformation while ensuring compliance with the stringent security requirements of their industry.

The Solution

SMS designed and implemented a comprehensive cloud transformation solution centered around a secure, multi-account architecture with centralized identity management. This new foundation provided the security, governance, and operational efficiency required for their regulated workloads.

The solution leveraged a number of key components:

• AWS GovCloud (US): Provides the secure and compliant environment required for regulated workloads.
• Multi-Account Landing Zone: Implemented using AWS Organizations and AWS IAM Identity Center to create and govern distinct AWS accounts for different environments and business functions.
• Networking: A robust network foundation was built using Amazon VPC and AWS Transit Gateway to facilitate secure and scalable communication between workloads running in different AWS accounts.
• Compute: A mix of Amazon EC2 for Windows and Linux workloads, alongside AWS Workspaces and Amazon AppStream 2.0 to provide secure Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) solutions for end-users.
• Containers: Amazon Elastic Container Registry (ECR) is used to store and manage container images for various applications.
• Storage and Databases: Amazon S3 provides scalable object storage, Amazon FSx for Windows File Serversupports file storage needs, and Amazon RDS for MySQL serves as the primary relational database service.
• Serverless and Automation: AWS Lambda is utilized for automation tasks, including provisioning EC2 Spot instance runners for GitHub Actions and writing custom logs to Amazon CloudWatch. Amazon EventBridge is used for event-driven automation and integration with SIEM tooling.
• Security and Compliance: A comprehensive security baseline was established using AWS Security Hub, AWS Config for resource monitoring and compliance, AWS Secrets Manager for secure credential storage, and Amazon SNS for notifications.
• Management and Operations: Amazon Route 53 is used for DNS management, and AWS Systems Manager (SSM) provides operational control and automation.

In addition, SMS provided hands-on assistance to migrate existing workloads from the legacy single-account environment to the new architecture, ensuring continuity of operations throughout the transition.

The Results

The partnership between SMS and this energy company resulted in a transformative overhaul of their cloud environment, delivering substantial improvements in security, operational efficiency, and agility.

Key achievements include:

• Enhanced Security Posture: Successfully deployed a multi-account environment with distinct accounts for different functions, drastically improving security by isolating workloads and limiting the blast radius of potential incidents.
• Strengthened Compliance: The implementation of strict identity management standards, a security baseline with continuous monitoring, and an IaC-driven change management process significantly improved the organization’s ability to meet regulatory requirements.
• Accelerated Solution Deployment: The use of IaC, modular design, and automated workflows reduced provisioning time from days to hours, allowing for the rapid creation of new accounts and deployment of solutions.
• Increased Operational Efficiency: Standardized deployment patterns, such as Blue/Green deployments, and enhanced resource monitoring led to less downtime during maintenance events and faster resolution of operational issues.
• Enhanced User Experience: The introduction of secure, performant virtual environments provided users with better tools to perform their work, enabling new levels of productivity and access.
• Improved Cost Management: Consistent application of resource tags across all environments provided granular visibility into cloud spend, enabling better cost tracking and allocation.

This transformation established a foundation for the energy company to focus on their core mission of advancing nuclear energy technology, rather than managing infrastructure challenges. The company now operates with greater security, efficiency, and agility, essential qualities for an organization working at the forefront of the energy sector.

Facing similar cloud infrastructure challenges? Let our team at CloudwithSMS.com help transform your environment with secure, efficient solutions tailored to your needs. Reach out to us at hello@CloudwithSMS.com to discuss how we can support your organization’s cloud journey.